Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] It was August of 2024, and my wife was getting ready and preparing to take our third daughter back to college for her junior year.
[00:00:12] It was then that I realized over the last seven Augusts, either Kristen, myself, or both of us had moved one of our daughters into school, while at the same time, our son, who's a little younger, was stuck at home with nothing cool to do.
[00:00:31] So I thought, all right, we need to do something. And I went to him and I said, john, what do you want to do when mom moves Sarah back into school? What do you and I. What are we going to do?
[00:00:44] And he didn't even hesitate. He was like, I want to ride roller coasters.
[00:00:49] Well, I like to ride roller coasters. So I thought his answer was brilliant. I was excited that we were going to do that. And so we got together and decided we would go to California, to Six Flags in Santa Clarita. That's where we would go, ride the roller coasters. Now, I wanted to maximize the trip, right? And so I wanted to do some advanced research. I wanted to understand what are the big rides and what do they like, what's good, what's cool, what's not.
[00:01:18] So I read the reviews, I watched videos. I was learning everything I could learn about Six Flags California.
[00:01:27] There was one ride, though, that really stood out.
[00:01:32] It's called Tatsu.
[00:01:34] Tatsu is what's known as a flying roller coaster.
[00:01:39] By flying, what it means is the track is above you and you are on your chest, prone like Superman style, flying through the air.
[00:01:51] Tatsu is the fastest, highest, and most outrageous flying roller coaster in the world. And I couldn't wait.
[00:02:02] So the day finally came. We got to the park early, we went in, we got in line at Tatsu. You know how the lines take forever. We finally get to the front, and we're about to step on. Now, when you step on the Tatsu, you literally step into the car and you're standing vertically.
[00:02:22] You pull the shoulder restraints down over you, and then the workers clamp your ankles into the car.
[00:02:33] Then the floor drops away.
[00:02:36] The car rotates 90 degrees, and you're just hanging there, looking at what was the ground below you.
[00:02:47] After what feels like forever, the car starts moving, right? You know the thing click, click, click up the track 170ft into the air. You're hanging there, just looking at the ground, thinking that's where they're going to pick my body up from.
[00:03:07] It gets to the top, and you know how there's that pause and then you just go 60 miles an hour. Down 170 foot drop. The curves, the winds blowing by your face. G force is pushing you against the seat. You hear the screams of all the people around you.
[00:03:28] It is exhilarating.
[00:03:32] So much fun.
[00:03:35] But what I can tell you is that experiencing tattoo, like going on the ride and actually doing it is a million times better than watching the videos or reading the reviews or studying up on it.
[00:03:53] You see, when we experience things in life, often they far exceed what we think is coming when we just study about it or when we know about it.
[00:04:06] Have you ever had that kind of experience?
[00:04:09] Something that you, you knew about, you maybe learned about, you heard about from people and then the moment came that you actually experienced it for yourself? And the difference between just knowledge of and experience of is so vast that you cannot even comprehend that gap.
[00:04:32] I feel like that's something that's common to our experience as people.
[00:04:37] In fact, I think that there is a parallel to our faith in that.
[00:04:43] If you were to think about and take God's love just as it is, we learn about it, we talk about it, you listen to people stand up here and tell you about it.
[00:04:59] But the question becomes, do we experience it?
[00:05:04] Do we actually know the difference between like knowing intellectually about God's love and actually experiencing God's love?
[00:05:19] I think if we were to just pull the room, we would probably sit here and say, there are three groups of people as it relates to experiencing God's love.
[00:05:30] There's some of us that have never experienced that we don't even really relate to, that don't understand what that would be different than what I've learned or what I've been told.
[00:05:41] We have not experienced it. There'd be a second group that there was probably a time in life that I feel like I experienced that.
[00:05:49] But if you were asked to ask me, do I experience God's love today, I'm not sure. I could say, yeah, it's maybe something from the past, but maybe not something that I'm currently feeling. Or part of a third group would be a group of people that would say, yeah, I've experienced God's love in the past and I continue to experience it today.
[00:06:16] Three groups haven't experienced it.
[00:06:19] Have, but aren't.
[00:06:21] Have and are.
[00:06:24] Which group would you put yourself in?
[00:06:29] This morning we're going to talk about a prayer at the end of Ephesians 3.
[00:06:34] And Paul is pleading with the church at Ephesus.
[00:06:40] He's pleading that they would experience God's love, not just know about God's love.
[00:06:50] So let's jump in verse 16 is where we start. And Paul writes, I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
[00:07:14] And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the Lord's holy people to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all, the fullness of God.
[00:07:44] As Paul begins this prayer, you see this idea of power appear twice.
[00:07:52] Paul is exhorting, praying that God would reveal power in the lives of believers of these Christians in Ephesus.
[00:08:04] Now, when we think of power, or at least when I think of power, I think of, like, marvel, like superpower, like some external super cool power that I can do or perform that others can't. And I can fly through the air, for example.
[00:08:22] But the power that is spoken of here by Paul is not that kind of power. He says that it's in your inner being, that it would dwell in your hearts. This power that Paul is talking about is a power that is inside us. It is within us.
[00:08:43] It's not an external force.
[00:08:47] And as Paul prays for this internal power, he identifies three outcomes that he's looking for.
[00:08:56] The first is that Christ would dwell in your hearts, that you would know his love, and that you would be filled to the fullness of God.
[00:09:09] As Paul is praying this prayer, he asked that the believers be indwelt, that they would know God, and that ultimately they would be filled with everything.
[00:09:23] Here's the thing that doesn't make sense.
[00:09:25] The things that Paul prays for as an outcome, these three things, these are true of all believers, the people that he is writing this letter to, that he is praying for. These things are true of them. In fact, Paul's own words attest to the fact that these three things are true of everyone who has come to faith in Jesus.
[00:09:52] He says in his own book to the Ephesians, back in chapter one, verse 23, he says that all believers are filled with God.
[00:10:03] In Ephesians 2, 22, he says that Christ dwells in all of us.
[00:10:10] And he implies in chapter two and says throughout all of his other writings, like First Corinthians 8, Galatians 4, Philippians 3, that we know God as believers.
[00:10:26] So why would Paul pray that the believers would receive an inner power and that this power would lead to these three outcomes when he knows those three outcomes already?
[00:10:45] Are happening. They're already real.
[00:10:48] We are already filled with God.
[00:10:51] We are indwelt by the Spirit. We know God. Why pray for the power for things that are already real?
[00:11:01] The answer is because what Paul seeks to do with the Ephesians and with us is help us understand that there's a difference between knowing that we are those three things and experiencing God's love in the midst of that.
[00:11:20] Paul looks at those Ephesians that he knows personally. And he knows that they know the truth, but he wants them to experience the truth of God's love in their lives.
[00:11:35] We people that we call Journey Church our home, we know these truths to be a reality.
[00:11:44] Do we experience God's love in our lives as a result of that?
[00:11:51] And Paul is praying for this inner power because he wants the Ephesians to understand there's more to your faith than you think.
[00:12:04] You may think that your faith is a product of knowledge and understanding.
[00:12:10] And though that's a piece, Paul would say, there's more, there's so much more. If you were to experience God's love as a reality, a tangible reality in your life, day after day and week after week, there is so much more.
[00:12:34] And you might say, well, what's the difference between knowing and experiencing God's love?
[00:12:41] Tim Keller, who is an American pastor and theologian, describes it this way when he says that Christians who are experiencing God's love have an inner sensitivity to the truth of God's love that is life altering.
[00:13:01] An inner sensitivity to the truth of God's love that is life altering.
[00:13:12] If this power, this inner power that Paul is praying for in our lives, then what does that look like in this scripture he's talking about? As we grasp how wide, how long, how high, how deep, how is the love of Christ?
[00:13:35] Grasp that word is, is, is very vivid. It is like grasping, like your life depended upon it.
[00:13:45] Imagine being the trapeze artist holding on to the bar 100ft above the ground, no nets.
[00:13:54] How tightly would you grasp that you would grasp God's love in your life so tightly that you would just continue to understand more about how high and wide and deep and long is this love that God has for us.
[00:14:15] And you can imagine if that power, if that inner sensitivity is so tightly grasped upon it would lead to a life altering result.
[00:14:30] Not just a faith that is same old, same old, whatever, no big deal, but a faith that is truly life altering, that is not only life altering to the point that you recognize the changes that have occurred as a result of how tightly you grasp onto the experience of God's love.
[00:14:52] But others see it as well in you. They recognize what's going on in and around your life.
[00:15:01] And that brings me to a question.
[00:15:04] If Paul is praying for this power upon the lives of believers that he knows, no, but maybe aren't experiencing God's love in their life in life altering ways, is it possible that if that's true of me, that I can do something to change that?
[00:15:25] Is it possible that if I have never or am not experiencing God's love in my life as I live right now, that there is something that I could do to potentially foster that reality in my life, that I might actually experience God's love regularly. And if I could influence that in some way, how would I do that?
[00:15:54] What would it look like?
[00:15:58] As I read Paul's prayer and I think about what he says, I believe the answer is in there as to what is it we could do to cultivate an inner sensitivity to God's love in our lives, that we might experience it and that it might actually alter the way we live, that it might change our priorities and everything.
[00:16:23] And I think he describes it as God has a part to play in that.
[00:16:27] Other people have a part to play in that and I have a part to play in that.
[00:16:33] So let's start by talking about God's part. What is God's part in my faith journey to help develop the inner sensitivity in my life to his love, that I might experience it in life altering ways?
[00:16:50] The first thing that we have to recognize about God's part is that he is in control.
[00:16:59] I know that sounds really silly to say, but I think as Christians in America we have a tendency to live out of faith where we think we're in control.
[00:17:08] We think we're in control of the way that things are gonna play out in our lives, in our work, in our families, in our kids lives. Like we are gonna control that. And we believe that by controlling that it is going to lead us down a faith journey that is going to be the best.
[00:17:27] But that's just not true.
[00:17:31] Like we're not in control.
[00:17:34] What I do or do not do does not control God. It does not manipulate him to do what I want him to do.
[00:17:44] It has to be something we relinquish. Control is. And in verse 16 we see that Paul says we are strengthened with power through His Spirit.
[00:17:57] It is God's spirit that is working in us, that power that is released. It is his work that actually is happening inside of us that allows for us to experience God's Love in tangible ways.
[00:18:12] In the next verse after this prayer, Ephesians 3:20, Paul says that now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, we've got to understand that God is in control.
[00:18:35] And that's what Paul's praying for. Think about it. Paul is praying for power through the Spirit, in the inner being of the Ephesians, that they would experience God's love in tangible ways in their lives.
[00:18:48] He's praying for that.
[00:18:51] Am I praying for that?
[00:18:54] Are you praying for that? Are you praying that God, through his Spirit, through the power that is in you, through his Spirit, would actually be allowing you to experience God's love in tangible ways in your life? Day over day?
[00:19:12] True confession, man. My prayer life often totally gets in a rut.
[00:19:18] I get in this rut where I am praying for, like, my safety, my wife's safety, my kids safety, the people I know, their safety.
[00:19:28] I get in ruts where I pray for my health. I pray for the health of those around me. I pray for everyone's health.
[00:19:37] I pray for, call it success, success in relationships, success in marriage, success in work, success in school, success.
[00:19:49] And if I start to think about these ruts, I get in my prayer life where I'm praying for these things and I was to summarize those prayers, what I would be summarizing to you is that I pray for my comfort.
[00:20:04] I pray for the comfort of those around me a lot.
[00:20:07] It's the dominant prayer in my life. And I'm not saying praying for those things is wrong or inherently bad.
[00:20:18] But there's more.
[00:20:20] That's what Paul's saying. There's more.
[00:20:22] And the more is that we would be praying for the opportunity of God's spirit to do things in our lives, that he would change us, that he would alter our lives in ways that we can't even imagine. And I can just think about if I was standing with Paul and I was praying the prayers that I get in a rut of praying, I could see Paul just gently placing his hand on my shoulder and saying, there's more.
[00:20:51] There's more for you to be thinking about than your comfort.
[00:20:57] And if you really want to experience God's love in your life in tangible ways, I believe Paul would tell us that actually is going to lead us toward discomfort.
[00:21:10] You see, as we experience God's love tangibly in our lives, as I've experienced that, my eyes have opened up to the world around me and in some small ways, I hope that I see the world through his eyes rather than through my own.
[00:21:29] That I see the brokenness and the vulnerable and the marginalized and the hurting. And I see them in a way that. That breaks my heart.
[00:21:42] That's beginning to experience God's love in our lives, that the things around us that we see actually make us uncomfortable.
[00:21:53] As we grow in experiencing God's love, we become less comfortable, not more comfortable.
[00:22:00] And that's what I think Paul is getting at here as we talk about God's part in this.
[00:22:07] So there's God's part and then there's other people in our lives part. And we find that in verse 18, when he says that he wants us to have power, but it's together with all the Lord's holy people. We are going to develop an inner sensitivity to the love of God and experience that in our life, in life, altering ways, together, together with others.
[00:22:36] If you've been around Journey for any time at all and you're not in a group, you may get frustrated because week after week, month after month, somebody's standing up on this stage saying, you should get in a group.
[00:22:50] It happens all the time. And you might be like, dude, I'm tired of it.
[00:22:55] Here's why, though.
[00:22:57] If you want to experience God's love in your life, not know about it, not think about it, not conceptualize it, experience demands that it's together, it's with other people.
[00:23:12] That is part of how we can foster an inner sensitivity to God's love, that we might experience it and that our lives might change.
[00:23:21] I went around with some of our staff this week and I. I just asked, like, tell me experiences in your life where you felt like you experienced God's love.
[00:23:30] No other prompt, just what do they look like? And I just wrote them down.
[00:23:34] And as I reflected on those, what I realized is more than half of the experiences that the people on our staff said were ways in which they felt or experienced God's love tangibly were through other people, neighbors, friends, co workers, people in their small group. There were people in their lives that had shared with them something that had triggered inside an experience, an emotion, a feeling of God's love that was different than just knowing about it.
[00:24:05] One staff member shared a particular story I thought was helpful. He said he was in a time a few weeks ago of kind of just being discouraged, just feeling frustrated and down.
[00:24:18] And he was just praying to God, would you have mercy on me and would you help me to experience your love fresh and new?
[00:24:30] Well, a Day or two later, he's just going about normal routine of life. And this stranger is kind of approaching him and he can tell he might want to talk, but not really sure.
[00:24:40] The stranger finally gets the courage to step forward and just says, I feel really awkward about this, but I think God wants me to pray for you.
[00:24:50] And our staff member is gracious and said, great. If it had been me, I'd have been like, great, but that's a little weird. No, I'm just kidding. He was gracious and he said, pray for me. So the stranger places his hand on his shoulder and he prays the shortest prayer in history.
[00:25:05] But as our staff member relays to us this story, he says, it was exactly what I prayed for.
[00:25:14] It was the encouragement I needed in that moment.
[00:25:19] And I tangibly felt God's love in that moment. I experienced it.
[00:25:26] Someone could have told him, God loves you. That's not what he needed. He needs to experience God's love. And he did so in that moment, moment.
[00:25:37] So there's God's part, there's other people's part. There's also a part that we play in this.
[00:25:44] We are not just drifting out there aimlessly with nothing to do. And in verse 17, Paul talks about us being rooted and established in love, that we as individuals have to be. We have to be rooted in love. You think of that giant spruce out in the valley and how deep those roots go.
[00:26:13] Those roots. When we think about God, we think about Jesus. We talk about it in language that I have a personal relationship with Jesus.
[00:26:24] And what Paul's saying is, that's got to be rooted.
[00:26:28] The roots have to go deep on that.
[00:26:32] And what does that take?
[00:26:34] Just like any relationship that takes time that I as an individual have to invest my time to grow those roots, to spend that one on one time with God, to be rooted and established deeply in his love.
[00:26:56] One of the things that I hear reasonably often is people will tell me, I really want to invest more into my faith journey. I really want to get more connected around here. I really want to get involved in my church.
[00:27:14] But I've got this stuff at work. I've got my family, my kids.
[00:27:21] They have reasons why they don't do that.
[00:27:25] And if I was just really honest, when I'm told that inside there's a translation happening, the translation is, I really do want to know Jesus better.
[00:27:39] But kids, travel, soccer is more important, or I prioritize it more right now in my life, or I've got this stuff going on with my kids or my family. That's more important in my life right now, or I'm early in my career, or I'm at a place in my career that's really important. I've really got to focus and invest here.
[00:28:03] And those things are not bad.
[00:28:05] Those things are great.
[00:28:08] But it's an issue of priorities.
[00:28:10] Like, we all have 24 hours, and we all make priorities and we make decisions. And there are some of us right now that are just saying, you know what?
[00:28:19] My faith is not my priority right now. And if that's where you're at, like, no judgment, no shame, like, but be honest about that. Just say that that's not where I'm at today. I hope to be there at some point or whatever.
[00:28:33] But we are in that place where our time isn't invested into our relationship with Jesus.
[00:28:42] And maybe that's why we're not experiencing his love. We're just not, frankly, investing enough in that, in that moment.
[00:28:50] It makes me think back many years, probably too many years, now that I think about it. But I'd been a believer about eight or 10 years, and I came to faith a little later in life than many.
[00:29:03] But about eight to 10 years into that, I had diligently studied the Bible, I had prayed, I was going to church. I was doing the things that I was told I should be doing as a believer to grow my faith. And I was growing my faith.
[00:29:21] And if you had asked me at that time, brian, do you experience God's love in your life? I think I would have said yes. Honestly, in hindsight, looking back, I realized that what I was doing is establishing a knowledge level. I was learning a lot, but experiencing not so much.
[00:29:43] I was challenged by some friends to do a study. It was called Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby. This was probably in the late 90s. And the study caught my attention because of the title.
[00:29:59] Like, I was being told that experiencing God was different than potentially what I was doing, like the Bible studies and the prayer and everything. Maybe there was more, maybe there was more, and I didn't even know it.
[00:30:16] So I do the study and I'm going through it, and it's week by week, day by day, and several weeks in.
[00:30:24] Blackaby writes that you kind of finished that lesson. And he says, I want you to put the book down. I want you to go for a prayer walk.
[00:30:31] Now, I. I didn't know what a prayer walk was, so forgive me, but for me, that was new language. I didn't know what he was talking about. I read his description of it, and I realized, oh, okay, you basically just want me to go have a conversation with God just walking around.
[00:30:47] So I did it.
[00:30:50] I started walking around South Spokane, Washington, and I'm. I'm just praying and kind of feeling a little weird. But no one knows what's happening because no one can read my thoughts. I don't think. And so I'm walking around and I don't really have a destination in mind. I don't have a timeframe in mind. I'm just walking around and I'm. I'm just praying. And I think it was the first time that I truly felt God's spirit nudge me.
[00:31:14] I know we use that language a lot, and for some, that language is.
[00:31:18] You kind of don't know what it is. And I would have said I didn't know what it was either.
[00:31:23] But I began to actually experience God. He nudged me to do something that I did. And then I experienced some of his love from that obedience.
[00:31:32] And then I would go for other prayer walks and other times and I would feel that nudge and I would do the thing and I would experience God's love in the life of another, in my own life or whatever it looked like. And I began to realize that. And I still do those walks pretty regularly. I've changed the name of them. I don't call them prayer walks anymore. I call them listening walks.
[00:31:56] I leave my house and I start wandering around.
[00:32:00] I don't have any tech. I don't take my phone, I don't podcast music, nothing.
[00:32:05] And I don't. I don't pray in the traditional sense of asking God for things.
[00:32:10] I just walk out my door and say, God, I am available and I just want to experience you, what you got.
[00:32:20] And that's what I do to try and do my part in trying to develop the inner sensitivity of my life to God's love.
[00:32:29] That might be life altering.
[00:32:32] So there's three things that I think we can do that can at least give us an opportunity or foster the ability for us to experience God's love. There's his part where maybe we need to be praying for his power to. To come through us that we would actually experience as love.
[00:32:50] There's other people's part. Are we. Am I around other people that are experiencing God's love in a way that I'm not?
[00:32:59] That I see their life as different.
[00:33:01] Their life has been altered by their faith differently than mine. How do I get more time with them? How do I learn from them? How do I spend my time with them to grow?
[00:33:12] And then how do I invest my time? That I would be rooted in my faith, that my roots would go deep, that I might develop an inner sensitivity to the love of God that I would experience in my life in ways that lead to transformation.
[00:33:32] I said that riding tattoo was a million times better than just watching the videos and learning about it.
[00:33:40] I would tell you that experiencing God's love in tangible ways in your life is then a billion times better than just knowing about it or intellectually understanding it.
[00:33:53] And so I have an assignment for you, Journey, to maybe make you think about this a little bit this week.
[00:33:59] It's got two parts. It won't take very long. It's really easy, but it will take some intentionality.
[00:34:06] Part one.
[00:34:07] If you were to think about those three ways that you could help foster that inner sensitivity in your life to God's love, which of those do you feel like is the one that's kind of holding you back? Or the weakest? Even those of you that are experiencing God's love on the regular, which one of those is your weakest? Is it God's part? Is it the part of other people? Or. Or is it your part?
[00:34:31] And once you determine that, which I don't think will take that long, what I'd like you to do is sit down with another person, someone who's safe, and have the conversation. I've identified that. I don't think I have other people in my life in a way that is developing the inner sensitivity to God's love that I would like and create some level of next step plan, some kind of accountability. How are you going to do that? When are you going to do it by?
[00:35:00] So you identify the area that you want to invest in and then you commit to meeting with someone to talk about it and to take that next step.
[00:35:11] Because if we develop the inner sensitivity in our lives to God's love and we experience it, there is no way that our life cannot be tangibly changed by that.
[00:35:24] It is an overwhelming experience, something that will change your life. And we all want a faith that is life changing. Will you pray with me, Father? God, just as Paul prays for power, internal power through your spirit in our lives this morning, God, we come before you and we ask for your power to rain down on our hearts.
[00:35:52] We pray that that power would infuse us with conviction.
[00:35:58] That we would allow you to be in control and do your part. That you would be at work and convicting us to connect with others. That you would be working in our lives to help us establish our rooted love. In you.
[00:36:12] And I pray, Lord, that it would be in your name that that would happen, that that power would come through us, that we would experience what we've done, yet to experience day by day, in Jesus name that we pray. Amen.
